Manage your stress

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 400.

Drink sensibly

Eat seven to nine servings of fruit and vegetables every day

Maintain a healthy weight

Become more active

Research shows that exercise can prevent or delay the development of hypertension and reduce high blood pressure. As well as lowering blood pressure, exercise will help to strengthen your heart, reduce levels of harmful LDL cholesterol and help boost beneficial HDL cholesterol.

Being overweight makes your circulatory system and your heart work harder and raises blood pressure. Research shows that if you re overweight, losing just 10lbs can help reduce blood pressure and make medication more effective.

The Blood Pressure Association says we should eat more than the standard five portions a day of fruit and veg as, besides helping to protect arteries against a build-up of fatty deposits, they'rea rich source of potassium (particularly bananas, dried fruit, melons and avocados), which helps lower blood pressure.

It's not yet clear how alcohol affects blood pressure, but we do know drinking large amounts causes it to rise. Women should have no more than two or three units daily, avoid binge drinking and spread their alcohol consumption through the week

The link between stress and high blood pressure is still unclear - stress certainly causes a transient increase in blood pressure, but the question of whether chronic stress contributes to hypertension remains controversial. However, research by Canadian scientists has shown that stress management counselling helped to reduce blood pressure in both men and women with hypertension.